


Star Wars : the End of Solo

by tr33ofsn4rk



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Prequel, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23095336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tr33ofsn4rk/pseuds/tr33ofsn4rk
Summary: Voe is sick of being outshone by Ben Solo, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's nephew and class favorite in the new Jedi Temple. She's just as powerful, just as skilled, and a whole hell of a lot more dedicated to Jedi creeds than the temperamental Solo- and she's intent on proving herself to Master Skywalker once and for all. Now if only she could ignore her growing attraction to her classmate...{Utilizes characters and settings (like Voe) from the The Rise of Kylo Ren and Star Wars Legends but not in any way based on or utilizing plot from either.}
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voe's journey begins.

The metal beast descended in a yellow haze, scattering dust and debris. The wind swept the scarf off of my hair, whipping white tendrils across my eyes. My mouth must have fallen open; I hacked and spit as dust wiggled into my throat. When I straightened, wiping my eye with a gloved fist, the beast had settled into the broken flora. Its great mouth gaped, lights inside pouring into the half-light of Haruun Kal’s dusk. I’d never seen a metal monster so large or misshapen, nor one with lights glittering in its belly. The few I’d seen in the Remains were in pieces, half-corroded by the fungi blanketing our planet. 

Figures slid down the monster’s outstretched tongue. A man, short and cloaked, and a lithe woman with a clunky blaster clutched between her hands. Her upper body swiveled, I assumed checking for danger, but the man marched forward undistracted. He barely turned his head as they walked down the beast’s tongue and straight towards my hiding place, a nook high in the crumbling stone wall around the remnants of our village. 

My heart hammered in my throat and I quickly yanked my mottled scarf back up over my loose braids. I pressed myself back into the crevice, willing the odd couple to pass me by even as they drew closer. The woman faltered and appeared to say something to her partner, but he waved her on. His steps never wavered. I put more Force into my thought,  _ go away, there’s nothing for you here _ , and to my dismay the odd cloaked man’s pace quickened. I felt his gaze on me, though I was surely nearly invisible in the shadows of the stones and setting sun. 

The tangy taste of adrenaline, like uncooked bloody flesh, filled my mouth and my muscles tensed. One twirling leap to hook my palm over the top of the wall and swing my body onto the ledge. Three running steps to the standing tree between the wall and the village, then I could fling myself down its trunk and I was within sight of Kinn, who would be on guard duty now the sun was sinking below the horizon. He didn’t like me much, but if I waved my arms and cast a shout into his mind-

“Wait, girl!” The voice echoed from below me, three body lengths down the wall. “Don’t run, we’re not here for a fight.”

I peeked over my bare toes to the ground below. The man had thrown his hood back, exposing a pale face almost as colorless as my hair. The dust had already begun to settle into his messy locks. The woman, a step behind him, was more naturally colored but I couldn’t make out her features; she continued to survey the Wood with a tight grip on her blaster. Suspicion bubbled in my chest, but a niggling voice in the back of my head suggested I listen to the odd little man. 

“I’m Luke,” He said, his voice soft. “Do you understand Standard?”

I scoffed, way above his head. Of course I understood Standard, I was no savage Balawai heathen. My people remembered the strangers from the sky, though the last ones visited long before my birth or the Plague. I said nothing, though, and I was beginning to grow wary of the soothing presence worming into my mind. 

“What’s your name, girl?” I shrunk back into the crevice, and the man murmured something to his companion, too quiet for me to hear. The foreign presence pressed harder, and I realized he was trying to use the Force on me. I pushed back, annoyed. The man laughed below. “You’re far more advanced than I could have hoped for! I’m not your enemy, girl, why don’t you come down here?” The presence vanished. “See? We’re not here to cause trouble.”

I glanced back down at the strangers. The woman looked up at me now, her eyes glittering in the last light of the sun. She was properly colored, but she wasn’t one of us. She towered over her smaller male companion. “You’re not from here,” I called out to them. 

The woman started to speak, but the man shushed her with an outstretched hand and a quiet word. “No, we’re not,” He said. “We’re from planets far across the galaxy. We’ve come a long way to meet you.”

That piqued my interest- or, more likely, my ego. “To meet me?” I said, incredulous. “Why me?”

The man, Luke, grinned. He was younger than I would have originally guessed, though certainly older than anyone in the village of orphans. “Yes, you. You’ve got a special power.”

I frowned, my nose crinkling. “What, the Force?” I snorted and squatted, leaning out of the crevice with more confidence. I was far above them, anyway, and if the woman turned her blaster on me I would have more than enough time to duck away from the lasers. “That’s not special.”

Dusk had quickly faded into night. I could just barely make out the man’s face by the dim glow of the blaster, but he seemed to stare right into my eyes. It was disconcerting.

“I’m surprised you know about the Force,” Luke said. The sounds of the Wood began to swell now that night had fallen, small beasties chirping and howling their announcements to each other. “You’re very young and isolated to know so much.”

I sucked air through my bared teeth, whistling in annoyance. “I’m not that young, stranger. We all know the Force, it’s in our blood. Why are you  _ really  _ here?”

The woman grumbled to her companion, then she spoke directly to me with frustration dripping from her tongue. “The sun has gone down, girl, it’s dangerous to be out so late. Take us to your parents so we can talk.” Her accent was odd; for such a tall, imposing woman she held her words high in her mouth. It was almost like her voice looped as she spoke, settling on different syllables than I did. 

“My parents are dead,” I replied, “and the beasties don’t come this close to the village in the warm season. You can stay where you are, strangers.”

Luke cut the woman off. He sounded much less exasperated than she did, but I liked her voice better. “Are you all alone then, girl? Do you have any adults who take care of you?”

“Nope,” I said. “There aren’t any grown people in the village, not anymore. Kenn is the closest, but we’re not friends. I take care of myself.”

“Well, then, why don’t you come down here and talk to us yourself, if you’re so grown?” It was the woman again, with her strange loopy voice. “We haven’t all night, girl.”

“My name’s not  _ girl _ ,” I huffed. “It’s Voe.”

“Voe,” The man, Luke, shuffled in the dust. I smelled it more than I saw, the dirty dead scent of scorched leaves. That was how we kept the beasties away, burning the forest to ash when it got too close to the wall. In the cold, they crept into our tents anyway, but in the warm season fire was the only way to keep them from chewing our ears as we slept. “That’s a pretty name, Voe, how old are you?”

“I’m seven. How old are  _ you _ , Luke?” 

“I’m thirty-one.” 

_ Oh, _ I thought despite myself.  _ Pretty old. _

Luke laughed again, as though he’d heard what I thought. Maybe he had, considering he could use the Force. “I’m a Jedi. Have you ever heard of-”

“You’re a  _ Jedi _ ?” I abandoned all of my trepidation and tipped way over the edge of the crevice, thrilled. “I thought all the Jedi died!”

“Well, they did. Sort of. It’s a pretty long story, Voe. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes!” I slithered down the face of the wall, finding invisible toe- and hand-holds in the crumbling stone. I could make my way up and down the wall in seconds, even with my eyes closed, so the dark didn’t bother me. In a moment, I was flat on the ground beside the cloaked man and nervous tall woman, bouncing on the pads of my bare feet. Dust skittered between my toes. “Is she a Jedi, too?” I asked, pointing to the woman with the pleasant voice. 

They both laughed, but he was the one to answer. “No, she’s not. Would you like to be a Jedi, Voe?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a really long time since I wrote any kind of fanfiction, so please be gentle!  
> I have no idea how long this will end up being, as I only have a general idea of where I want this story to go and no specific plan, so I suppose we'll just wait and figure that out together. I'm hoping to update every week or every other depending on my courseload. :)


	2. Sore Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voe bests Solo in practice and he takes their competition too far.

I dive hands-first over Solo’s position, crouched behind a faux boulder in the training hall. His eyes widen as I flip over his head, but he doesn’t react fast enough to dodge my wooden practice saber. It smacks flat onto his back, instant kill, and I spring off my free hand onto my feet. Beautiful execution, literally. He curses under his breath and I hear his saber clatter into the wall twenty feet away. 

I spin on my heel to face him and poke my saber up into his scrawny chest, grinning. “Throwing a tantrum already, Solo? It’s only the first round.” 

He glares at me from under his wild mop of black hair, his face drawn and furious. He’s always been a sore loser, but as we get closer to graduation his temper flares tenfold. “Fuck off, Soraya.” He mutters, his voice rumbling. He says it too quietly for Master Skywalker to hear from the balcony overlooking the hall, but as I’m within arms reach I just barely catch it. Now that our own fight has ended, my focus relaxes and I can hear our classmates cursing and huffing as they cross sabers. We practice with wood, not blade, but the marks still sting. Solo’s back will be bruised for sure, and I barely put any strength into the swing.

“Bantha brain,” I crow back. He knocks my saber off his chest with one slender hand, glowering. 

“Rematch, you chuff-sucking leech,” Solo spits, reaching into the empty air. The wooden saber he’d thrown across the hall soars back into his palm with an exaggerated smack. I don’t know if he’s showing off, which wouldn’t surprise me, or if he accidentally Force-pulled it too quickly, but it doesn’t matter. 

In an instant, Solo’s bounding forward with the wooden saber outstretched and his teeth clenched in a nasty snarl. He’s projecting, though, and I easily sidestep his intended blow. And the next, though less easily; I have to drop into a crouch as he swings right where my ear would have been. If he’d been guarding his mind properly, my head would be ringing. 

“Stars, Solo!” I curse, stumbling backward. I catch myself against the ground with both hands, my saber dropping to the floor with a heavy thunk. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

He rocks his weight onto his heel and raises his practice saber to his nose, dark eyes blazing. If I wasn’t sure he was completely human, I would have sworn there was a deep growl growing in his throat. He grips the hilt of the saber so ferociously, his knuckles alternate between white and pink with each shuddering breath. His thoughts, even less guarded than before, swirl in an unrecognizable storm. If I had to guess at what he was thinking, I would have said he wanted me dead. 

Green sparks break my view of Solo and I turn my head as a saber ignites between us, humming. Its heat, so close to my unprotected face, singes the curls that have fallen onto my cheeks. The hall falls silent, a dozen fights suddenly suspended as Master Skywalker interrupts ours.

“ _ Enough _ ,  _ Ben. _ ” He hisses to his nephew, whose expression falters for a moment before he relaxes his stance and straightens, towering over our Master. Solo throws me a last furious glare, then he hurls his practice saber to the ground and stalks toward the door. 

Master Skywalker sheaths his saber and watches his nephew’s receding back for a moment. I couldn’t guess at his thoughts if I tried; Luke is the only one in the academy whose thoughts I’ve never glimpsed, not even for a moment. He throws his shoulders back, as though shaking off a weight, and turns to me with a gloomy smile. “I apologize on his behalf, Voe,” He says, helping me off the floor with a pale, calloused hand. I know his face better than my own, as he’s been the only consistent presence in my life for near seventeen years, but I can’t name the emotion etching wrinkles around his eyes. Guilt, perhaps? Or I’m just projecting my own frustrations on him. 

Despite Luke’s tenderness, heat rises in my chest. I yank my hand from his grasp. “That’s the third time he’s almost seriously hurt someone, Master.” I snap. “Why is he still on-route to graduation if he can’t even control  _ himself _ ?” 

It’s definitely guilt in Skywalker’s eyes now; he lays his hand on my shoulder for a moment before raising his gaze to my classmates. “Training is complete for the day,” He calls. There are a few scattered whoops, but they’re quickly shushed by their neighbors. I can feel the weight of a few dozen eyes on me, and a few of the younger ones struggle to shield their curious thoughts. They’re not even projecting, it’s just difficult to ignore when someone’s thinking about me. They know better, but they haven’t had much practice protecting themselves from my overactive awareness. I don’t talk to the Younglings when I can help it. 

I shake Skywalker’s hand off and follow Solo’s flight to the door with my hands clenched into fists, ignoring as someone calls my name. Hennix, probably, but I’m too annoyed to stop for her. The door slides into the wall as I approach- not my doing, just mechanics. Sixteen and a half years away from Haruun Kal and I’m still surprised by the capabilities of technology away from flora that actively destroys it. 

Outside, the moon-world Yavin 4’s jungle creeps ever closer to the rebuilt Jedi Temple. We don’t burn away the trees here, not even as their roots slither into the gaps in the stone. Automatic lights illuminate the path Solo took, past another entrance to the training hall and around the corner. Odd. I would expect him to retreat to his quarters in the Padawan hall, but as I follow the lights around the corner there’s only a few feet of illuminated stone before he apparently broke away from the Temple and trekked into the undergrowth. Sure enough, as I inch towards the line of trees I can just see a smoldering swatch of vines he’d carved out of his way. I didn’t know he had his lightsaber on him during training; he must have hidden it under his robes so Master Skywalker wouldn’t reprimand him. 

I start to turn my back on Solo’s track, but another thought makes me glare towards the jungle. He  _ should _ be reprimanded! How many times had we been told-  _ no weapons in training! _ The instinct to grab your real weapon in high-stress environments is just too strong; for fuck’s sake, his  _ mother _ had been the one to prove that by showing us the scars from her own limited training with Luke. If he’d pulled his saber on me while I protected myself with wood, the blade would have cut down my practice saber faster than I could scream. With that kind of recklessness, I’d end up with a metal hand like Master Skywalker. 

I march after Solo, knocking underbrush away from my face and muttering expletives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my school has officially been moved entirely online for the remainder of the semester, so I'll tentatively say I'll be posting once a week on Friday afternoons/evenings.


	3. Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voe goes looking for Solo and gets more than she bargained for.

I see the row of demolished trees first, their severed trunks glowing with red embers and spitting smoke into the sky. It’s the first place since the Temple I can even see the sky, dense as the jungle is, but my view is obstructed by the smoldering foliage. They’ve all been cut down and subsequently hacked by a furious saber, presumably wielded by Solo. For a second, my ire is tempered by unease. I’ve never seen fury like this, not in training with practice sabers and certainly not represented by the burning hacks of a lightsaber in hundred-year-old trees. 

I push my nerves away. Sure, Solo’s a prick, but we’ve known each other for sixteen years and he wouldn’t  _ actually _ hurt anyone. 

I don’t hear the humming slashes of a lit saber or maimed trees crashing to the forest floor. Either Solo got a bigger head start than I thought, or he’s stopped throwing his tantrum. I step over a scrap of blackened fabric, noting it peripherally but not thinking much of it, and inch around the mutilated trees. 

I get the briefest view of something about my height, thicker and much paler, then a saber ignites with a whir and there’s a flash of blue light. I jerk back, gasping, and my back scrapes bark through my robes. I don’t yank myself backwards fast enough, or perhaps there’s not enough room between the saber and the downed tree, because a burning heat erupts in my chest and I know I’ve been struck. I can’t tell how deep, or how bad, but a guttural moan escapes my lips and I sink to my knees, clutching the wound. 

The light dissipates and Solo’s face fills my field of vision. His eyebrows are furrowed, brought low over his dark eyes. He scowls, but he’s not angry with me. At least, I don’t think so; he’s frantically pulling my hands away from my chest, cursing, yanking something off the ground and jamming it into the wound. Not off the ground, from his leg. He’s nude from the waist up, his belt and robes abandoned somewhere, and he’s ripped a strip of fabric from his dark trousers. He’s not as scrawny as I thought; muscles ripple under his pale skin as he presses the makeshift bandage to my chest. 

I start to laugh, delirious, but the movement causes a spasm of heat to burn through my torso and into my extremities. I can’t feel my fingers anymore, but I see them spasm where they’ve fallen on my lap. 

“Stop fucking moving, Voe!” Solo hisses. A bead of sweat drips down his long nose and splatters on his hands. They’re not bloody, to my surprise- no, they wouldn’t be, would they? Lightsabers don’t cut. They burn. 

Something shrieks, loud and feral. Solo jolts, and I realize it’s me, screaming.  _ That’s funny,  _ I think,  _ I’m not in that much pain, really… _ I study my fellow Padawan, who grows paler by the minute.  _ You know, he’s almost…  _

“You’re yelling,” Solo grimaces, interrupting my thought. He almost looks bashful, a blush reddening his white cheeks. “Try to keep your thoughts to yourself and let me think.”

“You’re a prick,” I say, completely accidentally. I hadn’t meant for that to slip out, even if I absolutely meant it. Fucking Solo.  _ You fucking  _ burned _ me.  _ I mean to project that to him, and I see him shudder a little as it registers. His scowl slips into a frown, but otherwise he pretends he didn’t hear.

He lifts the strip of trouser from my chest for a moment and peels my robes away from the burned flesh, surveying the damage. It’s grim, I can tell; his eyes go blank and he curses under his breath. His thoughts are guarded better now, or perhaps my own are just too loud, but I can see his muscles tense. With fear, maybe, or guilt. “I’m going to have to carry you, Voe. Can you hold this for me?” 

I try to send instructions to my arms, place my hands over his, but my fingers just twitch uselessly on my thigh. I wince.  _ Not happening.  _

“Fuck.” Solo checks the wound again, and I can see the gears turning behind his eyes. Every time he pulls the bandage aside, it takes more work to remove it. My charred skin oozes. “Maybe…  _ fuck! _ ” He straightens and launches a fist at the tree above my head. The punch lands with an enormous thud and bark shards rain into my hair and lap. He squats beside me again and lightly lifts my chin with two fingers, his gaze darting between my eyes.

_ What’re you looking for? _

I don’t know if he hears me. It’s getting hard to focus enough to project to him even with his face so close to mine. I don’t have the strength to speak. If I had an option, I would ignore the spreading heat in my breast and sleep. 

“No,” Solo finally says, and he drops to one knee to slip his arms around my shoulders and under my knees. “Stay awake, Voe.”

_ Why? _

Then I’m in the air, my body swaying and his breath hot in my hair. My vision is fuzzy, sporadic. My arm, the one not pressed into his heaving chest, dangles in midair. I’m barely aware it’s my arm; it feels like a rope tied around my shoulder and scraping along the ground as Solo walks. I can feel two hearts beating in my head, my own slow and measured and his fast, panicked, frightened. 

“Don’t go to sleep, Voe. Listen to me, stay awake!” 

My side, pulled close to his naked chest, vibrates as he speaks. His voice is low, soothing, and it brings to mind a long-forgotten nursery rhyme I can feel but not quite remember. Something about the stars, the Uplanders? He’s warm. Too hot, actually, and then my body is on fire and I’m screaming, pushing my pain away, out of me and into someone else, anyone else, Solo stumbles and he’s yelling, too, screaming for me to stop. But what am I doing? I’m burning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's pretty short, but hopefully Ben being shirtless makes up for it a little bit?


	4. MedDroid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voe has a visit from Luke and can't seem to make up her mind about Solo.

I break through unconsciousness with a scream, clutching at my chest with trembling fingers. Someone’s there tugging me down, murmuring in my ear, but I can still taste fire and ash and I thrash against their cold hands. I’m barely aware that I’m hollering wordlessly in my head, but the hands wrapped around my shoulders disappear and the door slams. 

Then there’s a familiar presence tugging in the back of my head and I open my defenses to him. Master Skywalker presses his fingers to my forehead and suggests I relax- not with his voice, with the Force, and powerfully enough to convince my panic to subside. 

“You scared us, Voe,” Luke murmurs, removing his hand from my skin and perching on the side of my bed with his arms crossed under the sleeves of his robe. Not my bed, actually; it takes me a moment to recognize the cool white chamber, but I realize I’m lying in a bed in the medical wing. My chest is stiff and sore, wound in an enormous bandage from collarbone to pelvis. I put a hand to my breast, questioning. “You’re okay,” Skywalker says, his voice thick. He rubs the short hair on the nape of his neck and purses his lips. “It was a nasty slash, but you’ll barely have a scar when you’re finished healing.”

I clear my throat and speak around my dry tongue. My voice is raspy, like I haven’t spoken in months. “Where’s Solo?”

“Ben?” Luke bobs his head, surprised. He chews on his thoughts for a moment while he decides how to answer me. “He’s… been reprimanded.”

“Where is he?” I repeat, starting to get annoyed.  _ Reprimanded _ ? The fuck does that mean? 

Master Skywalker examines my face, and whatever he finds reassures him. I don’t know what he sees, because I don’t even know how I feel, or why I ask. The stupid son of a blaster  _ maimed _ me, cut me down with his lightsaber. I’m furious- but also, in a way, worried. Not about him, not exactly, but worried. “He was released from the infirmary a few days ago and sent home,” Luke says.

I jerk. “He  _ what _ ?” I can’t figure out what confuses me more. “Sent ho- the  _ infirmary _ ?” 

Master Skywalker grimaces. “Er- yes. You gave nearly as good as you got, you know.”

“I- no? I gave as good as I- What does that even mean?”  _ I didn’t even have a saber. _

“You shattered his nose,” Luke almost, or maybe it’s just in my head, smiles at the thought. “You were screaming, we all heard it- you gave a few students nosebleeds, actually, at least the ones that were already outside…” 

“What?”

“Ah, yes.” He taps his head. “Ben got the brunt of it, probably because you were so close.” He pauses and clears his throat, his cheeks reddening. It’s almost amusing how easily I can read his embarrassment, catching his nephew carrying a wounded peer in nothing but a pair of ripped trousers. The thought makes my cheeks burn, too, but I’m not sure if it’s sheepishness or just anger. “Anyway, he’s fine. Leia collected him and I’m sure he’s getting a well-deserved tongue lashing.”

I let myself dwell on that thought for a moment, oddly pleased. I’ve witnessed Leia’s tirades enough to appreciate the force of her fury. Though he towers over his mother by a good foot, I’m sure Solo looks like an admonished toddler beside his ranting mom. Then another thought occurs. “Wait- if you sent him home-” My eyes widen. “Is he-”

“Suspended from his training, yes.” All trace of mirth is gone; Luke, for once, wears his age on his face. He’s pushing fifty, and in his solemn moods he actually looks like an old man with hundreds of battles under his belt. I feel a twinge of guilt despite myself.

“...is it permanent?” I ask. I don’t know why I care. I shouldn’t. We’ve never been friends, never even liked each other for that matter, and the stupid fucker put me in the medical wing. 

Luke sighs and studies his metal hand, opening and closing his prosthetic fingers. I wonder if he can still feel his hand, the ghost of his digits. Yllona lost her leg in a fire when she was young and she swears she feels the phantom of her limb sometimes, particularly when she’s stressed. I would assume kicking his nephew from the academy would make Master Skywalker plenty stressed. “I don’t know yet,” He finally admits, tucking his hand back into his robe. “You were right, Voe, he’s been toeing the line for months now. I don’t know how I could allow him to stay, not after this.”

I measure my next words carefully, staring past the glass in the door to the wall beyond. There are so few of us, the medical wing is almost always empty. I must be the only one here. “Do you think… does he have to be expelled?” Then, in a rush: “I’m not trying to second-guess you, Master, or make excuses for what he’s done, but-” I hesitate.

Luke nods. “Go on, Voe.”

I continue more slowly, watching his face for a reaction. “He’s family, Master. Not just yours, all of ours. He’s been here with us since the beginning…”

Master Skywalker sighs and looks away from me, into the distance. His mind is somewhere I can’t reach, that I probably wouldn’t recognize even if he were to open it up to me. “Family…” He starts, then hums in his throat. “Hm. Family is an interesting thing, Voe. Dangerous, even.”

I could smack myself. I know about his father, I’ve heard the stories a million times both from Luke himself and others who fought the Empire with him. Though my Master is not nearly as unattached as the Jedi Masters of the past, family is a sensitive subject. And it’s not just him- we all have our struggles. Solo is the only Padawan I know who still  _ talks  _ to both his parents, let alone sees them, and most of us are orphaned or abandoned. “I’m sorry, Master, I-”

“No, don’t apologize, Voe.” He smiles down at me and pats my knee with his flesh hand. “Never apologize, Padawan. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re right, he is our family. By the Stars, he’s difficult, but he’s not worth abandoning.”

I smile back to him, then wince. Whatever medicine is dripping into the needle in my wrist is wearing off, and my entire torso aches. Luke notices and immediately calls out, “Med!” A medical droid, vaguely humanoid but tall and clunky, swings the door open.

“You’ll have to go now, Master Luke,” The meddroid, its mechanical voice whirring, rolls to the edge of the bed and begins fiddling with instruments above my shoulder. Luke gives my knee a last pat and smiles gently, sadly almost, before bidding me farewell and extricating himself. The door swings closed behind a flutter of dark robe. 

I glance up to the meddroid, who looks back down at me with empty silver eyesockets. We stare for a long moment, then it says, “You should sleep now, Miss Soraya. I’ve given you a light sedative.” and shuts itself off. 

I sigh and run my fingers along the bandages on my chest. Unbidden, an image of Solo’s nude chest appears in my mind’s eye. It’d been so long since I’d seen him shirtless, certainly not since he became a Padawan. He used to practice like that, scrawny and pale. I honestly can’t remember the last time he did- I was fourteen, maybe? He would have been… twelve. Thirteen, at the oldest. He’s certainly changed, though his skin is still as white and unblemished. So pale I could trace the veins between his muscles and his skin…

I realize I’m biting the skin beside my thumbnail and snap myself out of that train of thought, mortified. I see Solo shirtless once and I completely lose my grasp on sanity. He’s still an ass, and a fucking reckless one. For fuck’s sake, he burned a  _ hole _ in me,  _ I’m going to be out of training for weeks, and even then my strength will be gone, and everyone’s going to treat me like a Youngling- _

Or maybe they’ll treat me like he did. His hands were soft against my skin despite years of training with wooden sabers, and he scooped me from the ground so easily. He’s tall, too: much taller than any Korunnai I knew as a girl, certainly the tallest man in the academy. And he is a man, now, though he still throws tantrums like a six-year-old. He looks like a man, too, toned chest sprinkled with dark hair leading down-

_ Stop that, Voe _ . I chide myself, blushing furiously. I know my thoughts are guarded from the others, and they’re all likely across the Temple anyway, but as the sedative spreads through my bloodstream and unconsciousness takes me, I try to remind myself not to dream of anything. Dreams are vulnerable, dangerous, and I’m so tired...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put off posting because it's not my favorite, but now I feel bad for missing my self-imposed deadlines. I'm really unsatisfied with how this turned out, but I genuinely couldn't figure out what edits it needed so here it is.


End file.
